Resolved: In the United States, private ownership of handguns ought to be banned
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- The NRA uses gun violence as an excuse to pass lax gun regulation.
- We can’t overthrow the ruling class with handguns.
- Gun ownership gives police a pretense for brutality.
DeBrabander 15Gun culture exists because of lax regulation.DeBrabander 15 Firmin (professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art) “Do Guns Make Us Free?” Yale University Press 2015 JW Consider the following facts and figures, and what they say about Americans’ deep love affair with guns—or rather, I should say, the love affair of some with guns. For despite the dominance of gun culture in America, and in particular the profusion of guns and gun- friendly laws, this love affair is progressively limited to a smaller slice of the nation. There are between 270 and 310 million privately owned firearms in the United States.7 Conservative calculations put the rate of gun ownership in America at 88 guns per 100 people, easily the highest rate in the world; the second most armed nation is Yemen, which lags quite far behind, at 55 per 100 people.8 The U.S. has the highest number of gun- related deaths among twenty- seven developed nations, according to a 2013 study, at 10 per 100,000.9 In Switzerland, which is the next best armed among the developed nations, there are 45.7 guns per 100 residents, and 3.84 fi rearm- related deaths per 100,000 people.10 Japan has the lowest gun ownership rate in the developed world, with 0.6 guns per 100 residents, and 0.06 gun- related deaths per 100,000 residents.11 Most fi rearm- related deaths in America are suicides. The Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2010, there were 6.3 fi rearm- related suicides per 100,000 people, and 3.6 fi rearmrelated homicides per 100,000.12 The profusion of guns in America has a lot to do with lenient laws regarding their purchase, of course—and, critics complain, the high number of gun- related deaths and injuries has to do with lenient laws regarding safety training and storage, as well as inadequate or faulty efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. Anyone who wishes to purchase a gun from a licensed dealer must undergo a background check through the federally administered National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which can be completed in a matter of minutes. As one licensed fi rearm dealer from Maryland explained, prospective buyers are not even required to provide their Social Security number to run a background check—and information about illegal drug use derives from whatever answers they may volunteer.13 After receiving rudimentary information about the buyer, the FBI runs a background check. The Maryland dealer says: “They give me a ‘yay’ or ‘nay,’ and out the door you go. . . . It’s quick and easy. And we take credit cards.”14 The NICS is supposed to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns, yet it often fails to do so. The NICS relies on states to provide it with mental health records, but most states do not supply this data.15 Numerous gun transactions in America occur without background checks. For one thing, the FBI has a three- day window in which to perform the background check; if it cannot do so, the prospective buyer may return to the licensed dealer and purchase the weapon in question.16 And then there are the many private transactions where no background check is required whatsoever—most notably at gun shows. It is diffi cult to determine how many guns in America exchange hands this way. Corinne Jones, reporting for CNN, states that 20 percent of fi rearm transactions in America are private; 17 former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg put the fi gure at 40 percent.18 Criminals have easy access to guns through what law enforcement calls “straw purchasers.” As reporter Frank Main describes them, writing on the fl ood of illegal guns in Chicago, these are “men whose full time job in the underground economy is to buy guns from suburban stores and illegally sell them to criminals.”19 The result is that “most of the guns recovered in crimes in Chicago were bought in suburban gun stores.”20 Because police often seize these weapons and gang members quickly discard them after a crime, Main points out, there is constant high demand for guns in Chicago—as in other cities with high crime rates and a bustling drug trade—which suppliers are eager and happy to meet. Guns easily fl ow in this manner from jurisdictions with lax gun laws to those with stricter ones. Other developed nations have made it much more diffi - cult for individuals to purchase—and keep—guns. Australia has a rate of 15 fi rearms per 100 people, and 1.04 fi rearmrelated deaths per 100,000.21 If an Australian citizen wishes to buy a gun, he must take a safety course beforehand and prove “genuine reason” for owning a gun, beyond self- defense.22 Furthermore, he must apply for a permit for each fi rearm he wants to purchase, and undergo a twenty- eight- day waiting period before approval is given.23 Australia forbids the private, unregulated sale of fi rearms and restricts the amount of ammunition individuals may buy in a given period.24 In addition, Australians are required “to comply with storage requirements” for their guns and submit to “an inspection by licensing authorities of the licensee’s storage facilities.”25 Canada has a relatively high rate of private gun ownership at 30 per 100 people, but only 2.44 gun- related deaths per 100,000 citizens.26 Canadians who wish to purchase a gun must pass a fi rearms safety course and seek out a third- party reference as part of a process of applying for a fi rearms license—a license that must be renewed every fi ve years.27 Canada requires that guns be unloaded when stored, and secured with a locking device or locked in a cabinet.28 In the United States, by comparison, only eleven states require residents to obtain a permit or license in order to buy a gun.29 Of these, eight require safety training.30 Only three states impose any restrictions on the number of guns residents can buy in a given time period: California, Maryland, and New Jersey, as well as the District of Columbia, limit purchases to one handgun per month.31 Eleven states have laws concerning the safe storage of guns—but these mostly require “locking devices to accompany certain guns manufactured, sold, or transferred.”32 Massachusetts alone stipulates that residents store their guns with a lock—and this is not subject to inspection or enforcement.33 The NRA uses gun violence as an excuse to pass lax gun regulation.DeBrabander 15 Firmin (professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art) “Do Guns Make Us Free?” Yale University Press 2015 JW While the rates of gun ownership are falling, the gun rights movement has made great advances in legislation and policy. Across the nation, the movement is working aggressively to relax gun laws so that gun owners may bring their weapons to a wider array of public spaces. The goal, it would seem, is to make guns an omnipresent, normal feature of everyday life. Gun rights advocates use the occasion of mass shootings to justify this development: after Sandy Hook, for example, they claimed we needed more guns in public spaces, not fewer. The NRA proposed placing armed guards in every school in America, or alternatively, arming teachers and staff. Even as fewer Americans own guns, gun rights advocates steadily march us to that day when armed individuals will be a common sight, in settings where we might least expect—or welcome—them. We can’t overthrow the ruling class with handguns.DeBrabander 15 Firmin (professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art) “Do Guns Make Us Free?” Yale University Press 2015 JW We should, of course, be concerned that our government might turn tyrannical. And we should be worried that if it does, it has the most powerful military on earth at its disposal. But 300 million guns in the hands of a motley assortment of individuals will not depose such tyranny or deter our ruling class from amassing power—especially since the public at large is hardly united against tyrannical government. Yet gun rights advocates inadvertently raise an important question here, which I will take up in the fi nal chapter: what would equivalent force look like today? What power at the people’s disposal would be suffi cient to hold a tyrannical government in check or, better yet, prevent it from emerging in the fi rst place? Gun ownership gives police a pretense for brutality.DeBrabander 15 Firmin (professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art) “Do Guns Make Us Free?” Yale University Press 2015 JW This leads to another reason guns are inimical to protest: they might incite police to react roughly, as has happened many times in the past, even when rallies were nominally or largely peaceful. What if the protesters had been armed at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968—where police, goaded by the defiant mayor, were already itching for a confrontation— or in Seattle in 2000, when police battled anarchists smashing store windows? What if the Occupy Wall Street protesters had stashed guns in their tents before the New York City Police Department descended on Zuccotti Park to disband their encampment? We cannot imagine guns in each of these cases because the police never would have allowed such protests in the fi rst place. Police typically justify rough treatment of protesters by saying the latter had become unruly, violent, abusive, and posed a threat to the larger community. In many cities in 2011, police departments broke up Occupy camps on the grounds that they were becoming dangerous. Guns in the hands of protesters only strengthen the police’s case for subduing protest. Further, consider the prospect of armed protesters in the face of our increasingly militarized police. Many observers of the Occupy movement commented on the militaristic approach taken by police, especially in disbanding the protests. A New York Times article entitled “When the Police Go Military” offered a summation: “Riot police offi cers tear- gassing protesters at the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif. The surprising nighttime invasion of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, carried out with D- Day like secrecy by offi cers deploying klieg lights and a military- style sound machine. And campus police offi cers in helmets and face shields dousing demonstrators at the University of California Davis with pepper spray.”89 The article went on to say that such actions stem from years of police department build- up during the War on Terror. Facing the possibility of a domestic terror attack and showered with money from the Department of Homeland Security, police departments across the country have bulked up on military gear—even in small towns—and shown greater readiness to employ SWAT teams for all manner of incidents, including nonviolent protests.90 In his book The Democracy Project, activist David Graeber writes of the anomalous presence of a SWAT team at a small Occupy protest soon after the Zuccotti Park sweep. Cato Institute fellow Timothy Lynch complains of an increasingly “militaristic mind- set” among police, apparent in “the way they search and raid homes and the way they deal with the public.”91 Lynch goes on to explain that “the more police fail to defuse confrontations but instead help create them—be it with their equipment, tactics or demeanor—the more ties with community members are burned. . . . The effect is a loss of civility, and an erosion of constitutional rights, rather than a building of good will.”92 The journalist Radley Balko quotes a New Hampshire resident critical of his town’s plan to purchase a BearCat (a kind of armored vehicle) for its police department: “It promotes violence. . . . We should promote more human interaction rather than militarize.”93 A militarized police, according to Lynch, endangers civility on both sides. Sending a SWAT team to a nonviolent, gun- free protest is an uncivil gesture by the police; it is an expression of deep suspicion. At the very least, it is a demonstrative threat to the protesters not to get out of hand—or, as Graeber argues, if the protesters are obviously peaceful, a SWAT team is a heavy- handed attempt to threaten them into protesting less vocally—or just less. Further, as Lynch suggests, militarized police are more likely to create than defuse confrontation. It is diffi cult to imagine how armed protesters, in the face of a SWAT team, could make the situation better for the protesters and uphold their right to speech. An armed protest facing a SWAT team is a combustible mixture; the presence of guns provides a perfect excuse for the police to crack down. Police were happy to disperse Occupy camps on far lesser grounds, including supposed public health threats. Imagine what they would do in the face of AR- 15s. Even if they did not physically confront armed protesters, what would protest look like under those circumstances? I can’t imagine that it would be anything we could describe as free. To the contrary, it would be unbearably tense, electric, and ultimately muted as a result of the weaponry. But of course, police would outlaw protest in the fi rst place, if protesters were armed. We can only exercise the right of assembly if assembly is nonviolent. When guns are present, especially among protesters, both assembly and free speech quickly vanish. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.99 Mb. Share with your friends:
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